crawl the earth
by gungnirburst
Summary: It's not her body. [Gen.]


This was supposed to be an Ellen/Viola fic, but it got away from me.

**Notes**: gen, horror, mild gore, bone breaking.

* * *

Her fingernails dig into the floors, the carpets, the stairs. This body is not hers and she cannot see, but she knows the way, can follow the thief based only on running footsteps and a path she once walked in her real body.

She's desperate, so very, very desperate. This body hurts everywhere, the pain so deep it's felt all the way in her bones and jagged flesh and missing pieces. Her hands dig harder into the floors she has no choice but to crawl on. Her fingernails break and splinter and bleed. She wants _her body back_.

Blood dibbling from her mouth, she reaches one arm over the other again and again, never tiring, never stopping the chase.

Not even when the door slams shut does she stay still.

Not even the rain slows her chase.

The hit to one of her empty eye sockets, however; that finally stops her from crawling.

Her arms hurt from overuse, but it's just more inches of pain added to the preexisting feet. In the time spent in this foreign body, she has learned to push it back, to focus on one other thing other than the limbs she no longer has, the limbs that never belonged to her anyway.

Her body. She wants _her_ body.

The voice she has now is garbled, and she almost cannot understand herself. But she knows exactly what she is saying, even when she's using speech that lacks a tongue to give the words coherent form.

Give it back.

_Give it back_.

**Give it back**.

A giggle in her voice. _Her_ voice, not the one belonging to the imposter using _her_ body, the one she has to use now, but _her_ voice. Her voice laughs back, mocking and callous and evil and uncaring. She's never heard her own voice have those qualities and it makes her stomach turn from something that isn't the blood she swallowed earlier upon waking inside a different person.

Footsteps come to where she lays, and her arms twitch and flail upwards, her fingers reaching for the unseen body she knows to be hers. She gurgles again, _give it back_, and she continues to grab at nothing but air.

"Please stop that," her voice says. Hands take her wrists and hold them tight. She scratches at her own arms and hands in an attempt to get free, but they hold her firmly in place.

"I never thought you would fight this much," her voice goes on. She does not need eyes in order to know of the unnatural expression taking up her own face. She can tell from the voice alone. "Do you really want your body that much?"

Harsh sounds escape her throat. _Give it back_.

Another giggle. "No," her voice croons. "No, I don't think I will."

One of her hands is released and falls to the ground, surprised as she is at being let go. Her right hand is still held captive, and she feels her pointer finger be manipulated into a straight line, her own fingers being the perpetrator.

"I should have done this before, but I never thought you would chase me so adamantly," her voice says with wonder. "I did need my fingers at the time, too."

Her pointer finger is slowly bent back towards the top of her hand. The process stops when her finger can no longer be bent naturally. She can only stare upwards even though she cannot see what is happening. She begins to tremble, due to fear and the cold rain seeping through a dress she never owned, but she tries to detach herself from the body she's in.

It's not her finger.

It's not her finger.

It's not _her_ finger.

"But not anymore."

The finger is jerked back hard and something snaps. The bone breaking jolts through the whole of the body she inhabits, or what's left of it. Either way, there is a new pain making its place in her false body. Left to fall from the hands of the witch, the finger swings limp toward the ground. She can't move it at all.

"Look how strong you are, Viola," her voice gleefully says. "You broke it so easily! I could never do that in my old, sick body."

A poke and grab to the broken finger produces a scream she won't admit to be hers. The middle finger is prodded next and soon bent back just like the one before it. She shakes her head hard, her current voice shaking as she speaks more garbled words.

Please stop.

Just give my body back.

Her face is wet, but with tears or blood or both she does not know, cannot know.

This is _not_ her face.

Give it back.

"Don't cry, dear Viola," her voice says.

The finger is pulled back a bit more.

"I'll take good care of your body."

It's coming soon, the jerk that will break another finger.

"But I can't do that if you keep chasing me."

She screams again when the bone breaks, and it feels much more painful this time, as if the force applied to break the bones became greater between this finger and the last.

"So..."

Another finger is grasped by her own hand.

"I'll just have to break all your fingers so you'll stop."

The bending process starts again.

"That sounds fair, doesn't it?"


End file.
